appendix.] WEST INDIES. 89 
protection ; such for instance as the coffee tree: it is indeed 
sufficiently firm in the ground, but it has only one large tap 
root, which goes straight downwards; and its lateral roots 
are so small as to afford no shelter against rain. So again, 
the roots of the cotton shrub run too near the surface of 
the earth to prevent the access of rain, and are neither suf¬ 
ficiently permanent, nor firm enough to resist die agitation 
by the usual winds. The same observation will be found 
true with respect to cacao, plantains, maize, tobacco, in¬ 
digo, and many other species of trees and plants. 
Trees or plants of the first description always suffer more 
or less in lands infested with these ants ; whereas those of 
the latter never do. Hence we may fairly conclude, that 
the mischief done by these insects is occasioned only bv 
their lodging and making their nests about the roots of par¬ 
ticular trees or plants. Thus the roots of the sugar-canes 
are somehow or other so much injured bv them, as to be 
incapable of performing their office of supplying due nou¬ 
rishment to the plants, which, therefore become sickly and 
stinted, and consequently do not afford juices fit for making 
sugar in either tolerable quantity or quality. 
That these ants do not feed on any part of the canes or 
trees affected seems very clear, for no loss of substance in 
either the one or the other has ever been observed; nor have 
they ever been seen carrying off vegetable substances of any 
sort. 
On the contrary, there is the greatest presumption that 
these ants are carnivorous, and feed entirely on animal 
substances; for if a dead insect, or animal food of any sort, 
was laid in their way, it was immediately carried off. It 
was found almost impossible to preserve cold victuals from 
them. The largest carcases, as soon as they began to be- 
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